1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to image processing, and; more particularly, it relates to image processing that employs edge detection in an image processing system.
2. Related Art
Conventional image processing systems suffer from many deleterious effects. One particular limitation when dealing with limited resolution of various media and hardware used to extract image data from a printed medium is the inability to maintain high-quality, visual perceptual characteristics of the high frequency components of the image data. Typical image processing systems of limited resolution capability commonly fail to preserve the high frequency component of the image data absent the implementation of a system or method employing some high frequency component image enhancement.
Another deleterious effect of conventional image processing systems is the creation of artifacts during enlargement and reduction of image data. These artifacts typically result from the image processing system's inability to adapt its image processing scheme to accommodate various and diverse areas of the image data. For example, the typical method wherein conventional image processing systems handle different image data regions within a given data image identically results in the creation of artifacts in the high frequency data regions. This situation is commonly referred to as an under-allocation of processing resources.
Alternatively, some conventional image processing systems employ highly intensive computations throughout an entire image to be sure to preserve any high frequency component data contained within the image. This situation is commonly referred to as an over-allocation of processing resources. Such systems typically suffer from an undesirably inefficient allocation of computational and processing resources. For regions that do not require handling of the image data in such a highly computationally intensive manner, the dedicated processing resources to these regions are typically far beyond that which is required. Thus, conventional image processing systems fail to provide a solution that can accommodate both high frequency and low frequency image data regions while maintaining efficient system performance and high perceptual quality image data after processing.
Moreover, conventional image processing systems that employ highly complex methods typically dedicate large amounts of processing resources provide high perceptual quality image processing for image data regions. Typically, however, they do not provide for varying processing methods depending on the particular region within a given set of image data. For example, conventional image processing systems typically fail to achieve sharpening of the image data within regions of high frequency while simultaneously achieving smoothing of the image data within regions of low frequency.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional systems will become apparent to one of skill in the art through comparison of such systems with the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.